Review: Philips Brilliance 275P4VYKEB 5K

Introduction

The 4K screen revolution is firmly underway. Spying any electronic
retailer's TV catalogue shows a variety of screen sizes that are
commonly bound by that 4K resolution. Arguably the massive pixel count
is more useful when you are up close and personal to the screen, making such monitors ideal for PC-centric productivity.

What's more, the rise in popularity has brought prices down to a level
where one can purchase a wide range of 4K PC screens for under £500.
Yet 4K isn't the limit on PC monitor resolution; Apple has popularised
5K screens and the likes of Dell, HP, and LG have built models soon
after. Heck, even 8K panels are beginning to surface.

These presently available 5K monitors all have a common 27in screen size and share the
native 5,120x2,880 resolution that adds up to 14.745MP in total, or 78
per cent more pixels than a 4K model. Put in that context, the
pixels-per-inch metric is significantly higher than what is usual.

Joining the 5K party is Philips with its 275P4VYKEB panel. Not only is
the resolution immense, this 'PerfectKolor' screen uses a
10-bit PLS LED panel and, as a nod towards the content
creation professional, has a purported 100 per cent of
sRGB coverage (this is normal) and 99 per cent of the wider
Adobe RGB.

Though you wouldn't know the Philips' credentials by looking at it.
The monitor is presented in the regular dark-grey colour
scheme favoured by the manufacturer, and the stand attaches in the same
simple way as others we have reviewed previously. This means the solid
oval base can be attached in under a minute, whilst clipping into the
back of the Vesa mount couldn't be simpler.

As usual, there is plenty of adjustment on offer, from 150mm of
vertical travel, full pivoting ability for placing it in portrait mode,
to +/- 65° of swivel and the standard amount of tilt. It is also easy
to micro-adjust each parameter to get it just perfect, and at 8.1kg it
doesn't move once in place.

What's immediately obvious, even when switched off, is just how glossy
and reflective the screen coating is, which is a direct contrast to, say, our
long-term 4K testing monitor, the 288P6LJEB. The surrounding bezels,
too, are larger, but they're not so big as to be overly distracting.

Philips uses the extra casing space to mount a 2MP webcam
right into the middle of the upper section, while the back of the
chassis houses a couple of 2W speakers that produce perfunctory sound.

Hopping over to one side, three USB 3.0 ports are standard fare, and
Philips takes an interesting tack as far as connections are concerned:
the monitor is outfitted with two DisplayPorts only. Though newer
graphics cards support DisplayPort 1.2 and are ready for v1.3 and v1.4
of the standard, running the full 5K60 experience on the Philips
requires two DP cables, bundled in the package, to snake from the PC to
the screen. Attaching just one limits screen resolution to 4K60, but we
had no problem in getting the optimum resolution from an EVGA GeForce GTX
1080 Ti GPU that has three of the DP connections on the backplate.

There is something wonderful about running 5,120x2,880 on a desktop; click to enlarge

Philips adds in an external power brick in order to keep the monitor
reasonably svelte. Appreciating the higher energy consumption of
running this specific panel, the company quotes power consumption
figures of 45W in eco mode and 85W maximum.

The on-screen display settings haven't changed from other Philips
monitors, meaning that all functions are controlled by touch-sensitive
parts of the casing on the bottom-right of the chassis. They take a bit
of getting used to, and we prefer the joystick method of control, or
just plain old buttons, but you shouldn't have to delve into them too
often.

Switched on, the glossy screen and 5K resolution combine to offer
super-punchy colours and excellent viewing angles. Subjectively, the
image looks fantastic out of the box, and comparing side-by-side
against our 28in Philips 4K monitor on various photos and videos shows
the newer screen to be, well, just better in almost every way, helped
no doubt by the 10-bit panel being able to produce more colours without
the usual dithering techniques.

We say almost better in every way because, even to the naked eye, we
spotted a touch of backlight bleed in one corner when displaying a
block-colour screen, and formal testing using a Spyder 4 Elite showed
that uniformity was very good in all areas other than bottom-left.

An inevitable downside of opting for a monitor with an esoteric
resolution is cost, as the Philips 27in screen now retails for around
£1,200, or at least twice as much as a 4K panel boasting broadly similar
specifications. Let's now run it through the testing gauntlet and see
if it can continue to serve up impressive results.